


Defenseless

by arabmorgan



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-03 21:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12756636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: "His fanboy side never did manage to make a revival – the posters slowly peeled off the walls, until he tore them down all together; the albums collected dust on his shelves until he shoved them into the back of his cupboard and replaced them with increasingly thick textbooks."And then Minhyun appears in Jinyoung's life again.





	Defenseless

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a cute fic but it got like mildly not-cute? Honestly this whole story just didn't go anywhere I wanted it to go and I don't know anything about it. (Is it platonic? One-sided? Reciprocated? Idk just read it however you want.)
> 
> But one thing I do know: hwangdeep is super soft and I love them.

Bae Jinyoung – it was a name most would, these days, associate with a quiet, hardworking high school student. But go back a few years and Bae Jinyoung had also been the name of an incredibly dedicated, bona fide fanboy (think gasping over four-second online videos and mooning over his phone wallpaper). It was a time that he, if he was honest, would very much prefer not to think about.

It wasn’t that he was _ashamed_ or anything, but – well, maybe he was. Just a little.

To be fair, at least his idol had _known_ who he was – literally. He still had the emails saved to his folders and the signed merch stored in the back of his wardrobe, and anyone who wanted them would have to pry them from his cold dead hands.

Those had been better days – for him, anyway. Not so much for his idol.

Hwang Minhyun had debuted five years ago with his indie band NU’EST, and Jinyoung had discovered them just a year later, at a band festival his friend had gotten free tickets to. It was, quite frankly, love at first sight, and Jinyoung had never been able to say exactly why.

Maybe it was the music, or the band’s obvious bond, or just Minhyun’s general perfection. Possibly all three.

Either way, the email correspondence started when Jinyoung, upon visiting NU’EST’s extremely, well, _amateur_ -looking website, found it to be supremely uninformative, and was forced to use the contact page to ask for the band’s upcoming schedules.

> Hi Jinyoung!
> 
> Thanks so much for your interest in NU’EST! We really appreciate it. We maintain our site on our own, so we apologise that it’s not always super up-to-date, but I’ve attached the dates of a couple of gigs that we’ll definitely be attending. Hope to see you there!
> 
> Minhyun

It wasn’t that Jinyoung _liked_ the fact that NU’EST was virtually unknown, basically operated out of a garage, and had about five dedicated fans in total, but it had certainly made being a fan that much easier for him.

It didn’t take long for him to get on a first-name basis with all the members, to start receiving signed merch in his mailbox, and to get invited into their waiting rooms backstage at festivals. NU’EST had never been on TV before, and no one else in his class knew or cared about their existence, but they were a 13-year-old boy’s friends, and that was enough.

“Jinyoungie!” Minhyun would exclaim with delight, every time he showed up to one of their street performances, and he would ruffle the hair on the back of Jinyoung’s head just so. Jonghyun would beam, and more often than not, Minki would produce a cupcake or two from _somewhere_ for him to munch on. Dongho, like Minhyun, had a fairly standard greeting for him, which was to give him a friendly punch in the shoulder that never failed to send him stumbling sideways.

Sometimes, he still looked back at those old emails, just for the fun of it.

> Hi Jinyoung!
> 
> We just mailed our new album out yesterday, so expect it in the post in a couple of days. We really can’t thank you enough for your constant support. Let us know what you think of our new songs, and see you soon!
> 
> Minhyun
> 
> P.S. Minki would like to know if you like blueberries. (He’s baking again.)

Ah, the days when he had scrounged and saved just to buy at least three copies of each new album, so he could feel like he had done his part to support his favourite band. His email replies had always been extremely lengthy – rambling, multi-directional comments about every song in the album and how they had made him feel; how much NU’EST meant to him; even little snippets about his school life.

The Jinyoung of today cringed every time he read those emails again (but somehow, he could never bring himself to delete them), and he wondered if NU’EST had laughed reading those silly messages as well. But every reply (usually from Minhyun, occasionally from Jonghyun) had always been patient, grateful, and immensely fond.

NU’EST had accompanied a painfully shy boy through his most formative teen years, and to say that his world had crumbled around him the day they announced their disbandment – through a personal text to his phone, no less – would not have been an understatement.

Minhyun had picked up the phone on the second ring.

“H-hyung?” It was thoroughly embarrassing to think about now, but Jinyoung had pretty much cried through the entire conversation. It made him feel bad too, to think about how low NU’EST must have been feeling, and yet they’d had to comfort a devastated 16-year-old as well. (God, what a loser he had been.)

Lack of funding and lack of interest was what it had boiled down to in the end, much like every other band that had faded into obscurity over the years, much less in Korea’s immensely competitive music scene. Without a company, without backing, they’d never stood a chance.

“We’re still going to be around, Jinyoung. Just – not as NU’EST.” Minhyun had said, and he had sounded like he was smiling slightly, which only made Jinyoung sniffle harder. “You have our numbers. Text us, okay? Keep in touch. You’re our number one fan, you know. We love you.”

Jinyoung had cried so hard he’d barely been able to choke out his words to the other members when Minhyun had passed the phone around at the end. He’d even made Minki cry.

And so the fanboy in Jinyoung died with NU’EST.

It wasn’t like he stopped listening to music or became a hermit. He just stopped being _attached_ – the manufactured idol personalities and crowded fansigns just couldn’t compare in the least, not after he’d called _his_ idols _hyung_ and eaten their personally-baked cupcakes.

Time passed, and it was inevitable that his contact with NU’EST gradually petered out. His own workload at school wouldn’t stop increasing, and Minki had gone back to university to study fashion. Dongho was actually halfway to getting his name out there with his composing, while Minhyun had gone on to join a small entertainment company and barely had access to his phone.

Jonghyun, who had returned to his studies as well, was the only one who continued to text Jinyoung with any regularity at all – his check-ins were sporadic, but always kind. Sometimes, he talked about a Korean-American exchange student he had befriended in the same way Jinyoung talked about his own little circle of friends.

Of Minhyun, the next Jinyoung heard of him was through some godawful survival show called Produce 101. Jinyoung voted like a boy possessed, because three years of adoration and hero-worship was not so easily destroyed, but that was where it ended for him.

Minhyun made it into the top eleven, and from there, he leaped from success to success with his temporary group. Jinyoung was happy for him, but he didn’t _know_ this group, and he no longer felt like the couple of albums he could afford made any difference to the hundreds of thousands of copies Wanna One sold with every comeback.

He searched for Minhyun’s name on Naver when he remembered to, but mostly he kept his head down and lived his own life. His fanboy side never did manage to make a revival – the posters slowly peeled off the walls, until he tore them down all together; the albums collected dust on his shelves until he shoved them into the back of his cupboard and replaced them with increasingly thick textbooks.

It was a predictable life, but it was exactly the kind of life he enjoyed.

At least, it _had_ been predictable – until the day he came home from school to find Hwang Minhyun sitting right on his doorstep.

Jinyoung came to such an abrupt halt that he almost tripped and faceplanted onto the concrete. Minhyun was looking down at the floor, the very picture of dejection, but Jinyoung pretty much knew what Minhyun looked like like the back of his hand, and the person in front of him was _definitely_ Hwang Minhyun.

“Hyung?” he said, only it came out in a hoarse, disbelieving whisper. But Minhyun didn’t look up; he didn’t even _move_.

Jinyoung glanced up and down the corridor, suddenly terrified that someone might walk past and spot none other than a Wanna One member sitting on the ground, ready to be kidnapped. “ _Hyung_ ,” he said, a little more urgently, finally finding the courage to walk up to the older man.

Crouching down, he finally realised the reason for Minhyun’s lack of response – the idol was fast asleep, neck bowed in a way that was sure to give him grief when he finally awoke.

Head tilted, peering up at a completely oblivious Minhyun, Jinyoung should probably have felt like a creepy stalker. Instead, he just felt…sad. The man he had once thought the world of looked different from before, he realised, and it wasn’t just the immaculate styling and layer of make-up. Minhyun looked thinner, _tired_ , his jaw sharp and his cheeks hollow, the bags under his eyes clearly visible up close.

Fame – it really was a double-edged sword, wasn’t it?

Still, tired or not, Jinyoung couldn’t just let Minhyun _sit_ here, out in the open. Thanking every god in existence that his parents wouldn’t be back from work for a few hours yet, Jinyoung grabbed Minhyun’s arm and shook it.

“ _Hyung_ ,” he repeated, louder this time, and finally, Minhyun stirred. He looked frazzled, blinking sleep out of his eyes with a stiff set to his lips, until he looked up and his gaze landed on a wide-eyed Jinyoung. It was one of those moments when a person is caught unawares, at his most vulnerable – still bleary-eyed from his nap, Minhyun’s entire expression loosened at the sight of Jinyoung, a relieved smile tilting his lips, and he looked so pleased, so _open_ , that Jinyoung felt like he had witnessed something immensely private.

“Jinyoungie,” Minhyun murmured, and he reached out to cup the back of Jinyoung’s head, ruffling his hair in the exact same way he’d always done. Without even meaning to, Jinyoung found himself grinning that same dopey grin that only NU’EST had ever seen. It was just that easy.

Reality only set back in rudely about three seconds later, when the glow to Minhyun’s eyes began to fade, and he darted a look in both directions in much the same way Jinyoung had done moments earlier. All of a sudden, he seemed much less fox-like and much more reminiscent of a hunted rabbit instead.

“Hyung, what are you _doing_ here?” Jinyoung demanded, finally putting to words the number one question on his mind. “Aren’t you – you know, _not_ supposed to be here?” He waved a hand vaguely about; it wasn’t like he _knew_ exactly what Wanna One was supposed to be up to these days.

“I just –” Minhyun stopped to take a breath, looking a little like he was going to pass out from either fear or exhaustion. “I just needed a break. I’ve written your address so many times – I was the one who mailed everything out last time, you know. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Jinyoung stared at Minhyun. “Let’s go inside first,” he said at last, for lack of anything else to say – because how was he supposed to react to the fact that his former-hero-turned-superstar-idol _still_ had his address memorised? _And_ had deemed him safe enough to seek refuge from? The very realisation was daunting in its immensity.

“So, uh, no one else knows you’re here?” Jinyoung asked, after settling Minhyun at his dining table and making him a cup of tea, as if this whole scenario was a perfectly normal social visit.

Minhyun took a sip from his cup and let out a long sigh with his eyes shut. “No one,” he confirmed, slowly opening his eyes and meeting Jinyoung’s gaze unflinchingly. “Don’t worry, I’m not skipping a schedule. Just some dance practice.” Something in him seemed to droop at the thought, and Jinyoung suspected it was the responsible part of Minhyun flinching at this awful abandonment of his own groupmates.

“You look like you could use a rest,” Jinyoung said quietly, absently shaking his fringe out of his eyes. Even in NU’EST’s final days, when the band had been fighting its losing battle to stay afloat, Minhyun’s expression had never looked as utterly deadened as it did now. In fact, he looked like the only thing keeping him from faceplanting into his cup was sheer willpower.

Minhyun blinked a couple of times. “We’re _all_ tired. It’s not fair that I’m the only one running off, really,” he said suddenly, as if some sort of realisation had struck him. “I should probably get back.”

Jinyoung winced. “Wait!” he blurted, darting forward to place a hand on Minhyun’s shoulder and pushing him back onto the chair while he was halfway through the act of standing. Minhyun looked so tremendously surprised at that single action that Jinyoung would’ve snickered if the situation hadn’t been so dire.

“Half an hour,” he said insistently. “You can afford half an hour, right? Just – take a nap. I’ll wake you up. I’ll even set an alarm, I promise.”

Minhyun’s mouth half-opened, like he was about to protest, but his expression said clear as day that he desperately wanted to stay. The sight broke Jinyoung’s heart a little.

“You came here to get away from everything, right? So just – _rest_ , okay? Please don’t make this trip a wasted one, hyung.” He squeezed lightly, and he could feel the jut of Minhyun’s collarbone against his thumb.

“Thank you, Jinyoung.” Minhyun sounded so relieved that all Jinyoung could think of was a deflating balloon, stretched to its limits but finally allowed to resume its normal shape (although it would never be quite the same again; it would always be thinner, weaker in some spots). “Just half an hour.”

Jinyoung bundled Minhyun into his bed – of _course_ ; as if he would make Hwang Minhyun nap on his family’s ratty old couch – and dutifully set an alarm for him, and that was mostly it. The moment his head touched the pillow, Minhyun’s eyelids began to droop with alarming swiftness.

Jinyoung was just about to get up and leave the room – because as much as he wanted to, he wasn’t about to stoop as low as staring at Minhyun when he was _sleeping_ – when Minhyun shifted, one hand lifting to pat at the empty space beside him. “Don’t go,” he muttered, his voice sluggish with fatigue, and Jinyoung froze. “I live with ten members. It feels weird when I’m alone.”

Never, even in his wildest fanboy days, would Jinyoung ever have imagined sharing a bed with the person he viewed as the most perfect specimen of _homo sapiens_ to exist on Earth – but here he was, doing just that.

Minhyun’s arm was draped loosely over him, the idol’s every breath lightly tickling the back of his neck like a whispered word. Minhyun had quite promptly fallen asleep about three seconds after Jinyoung had joined him on the bed, and now Jinyoung finally knew what heaven and hell at the exact same time felt like.

Anyone else in that situation would probably have ended up falling asleep as well, but Jinyoung’s mind was moving far too quickly to rest. In his mind, he had always separated NU’EST’s Minhyun from Wanna One’s Minhyun, and he had, perhaps, thought less of Wanna One’s Minhyun, the idol, the sell-out.

But now Wanna One’s Minhyun was out cold right behind him, snuffling lightly in his sleep, and Jinyoung found that the Minhyun he had adored had never really disappeared. Under all the glitz and glam, there was still the same young man who had found enough kindness in himself to befriend a shy, wonderstruck kid barely out of his teens.

He had laughed and cried and suffered in NU’EST, and now he was doing the very same thing in Wanna One, even if it didn’t seem like it, even if it seemed like there could be nothing better than being part of the biggest boy group in the nation.

Jinyoung turned slowly onto his back, looking over to his right, gaze trailing from the sharp slope of Minhyun’s nose down to the soft bow of his upper lip, and back to the flickering movement of his eyes beneath his dusty pink lids. Up close, he could see the faint blemishes on Minhyun’s skin, the uneven smudge of his lip tint.

He wondered if Minhyun was dreaming, and what he was dreaming of. He wondered if it was weird to want to protect someone who was half a decade older than him, and probably more successful that he would ever be in his entire life.

He was staring at the ceiling, feeling Minhyun’s arm over him rise and fall with every breath he took, when the alarm rang – it felt like an eternity had passed, but also no time at all. Even before Jinyoung could decide what to do next, Minhyun twitched and let out a long sigh through his nose, and his eyes opened.

A vague flash of surprise passed over Minhyun’s face when his eyes landed on Jinyoung’s, before a soft smile curved his lips. “Didn’t you sleep?” he asked, the weight of his arm finally leaving Jinyoung’s body as he stretched languorously, his lazy motions almost catlike in nature.

Jinyoung shook his head mutely, taking a full three seconds to find his voice again. “Wasn’t tired,” he mumbled, gaze dropping in embarrassment, although exactly what he was embarrassed about he wasn’t quite sure.

“Thanks for letting me stay.” Minhyun sounded ridiculously perky after a single half hour nap, but Jinyoung obligingly lowered his head slightly as the older man ruffled at his hair once more. “I know I shouldn’t have, but –”

Jinyoung shook his head again, more vehemently this time. “It’s okay,” he insisted, and before the thought could pass through his mind properly, he blurted out, “I _missed_ you.” He immediately wished that he hadn’t, or that he had at least said something a little less pathetic.

Minhyun only smiled, a little wistfully perhaps, but his eyes were curved into genuine half-moons of contentment. “I’ve missed you too, Jinyoung-ah. It was different back then, wasn’t it? _We_ were different.”

The next moment, Jinyoung felt himself being pulled in closer, felt the soft brush of lips against his forehead, and he felt the entire world freeze around him.

“You don’t mind if I use your bathroom for a bit, do you?” Minhyun asked, already standing, but all Jinyoung could do was stare dazedly at him.

He trailed stupidly after Minhyun when the idol exited the bathroom and headed over to the main door, a lost puppy in his own home. His words were caught somewhere deep in his throat as he drank in Minhyun’s presence with a stunned sort of desperation – he was still living it, but that didn’t stop the past hour from feeling terribly surreal.

“You –” Minhyun turned to look at Jinyoung after slipping on his shoes, seeming just as lost for words. “Don’t forget about me, okay? It’s going to be less cool to like idols as you get older, you know.” He grinned, chucking Jinyoung under the chin teasingly.

Jinyoung flushed. “ _Hyung_ ,” he mumbled, almost defensively. “ _You’re_ the one who might forget me. You have, like, a billion fans now.”

Minhyun actually laughed at that, soft and light. “But I only remember the address of one,” he pointed out, and Jinyoung wanted to crumble to the floor in embarrassment. Minhyun pulled him into a hug with another laugh, one hand resting lightly on the back of his head, and for some reason the fact that Minhyun smelled like peaches made Jinyoung feel like crying a little.

When Minhyun left, he walked away with a few pieces of Jinyoung tagging along for the ride – a cap he had borrowed, pulled down low over his face; a scrap of paper with a phone number on it (“so I can text you when we get our phones back”); and maybe something a little less tangible.

Minhyun turned and waved when he reached the end of the corridor, and Jinyoung waved back.

**Author's Note:**

> Look at this prompt. Isn't it so fracking cute ; v;
>
>> Person A was Person B's number one fan back when B was part of a small-time garage band- exchanging emails and even receiving their "official merch" in the mail. Now Person B is part of the biggest boy band in the nation and needs a place to get away from everyone. And that's how Person A found an idol he stopped following, sitting outside his door.


End file.
